A good meeting at the Chamber of Commerce yesterday, with some positive ideas for the short and the long term.
As for the short term, amongst the ideas that our friends have offered to strengthen the town centre is a programme of high quality street entertainment, a sort of mini-Covent Garden - folk, classical, opera, mime, circus, comedy etc. The idea was discussed with the business community and police yesterday, and given the thumbs up. Mike Walford, who runs the Wadebridge Folk Festival is willing to coordinate the programme. He is rather overwhelmed at the moment with the coming Festival, so any help and ideas would be very very welcome. We thought we would start with slots on Fridays and Saturdays, and aim to begin in mid-July.
For the longer term, the other good news is that the Wadebridge Town Plan is to be updated to take stock of what has changed since 2004, and reach a consensus on what would be the best path for a sound future. We gather that Lovewadebridge will be invited to contribute to this process. That will give another avenue for our friends to have input into discussions about what sort of future townspeople seek, and how best to bring that about.
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I very much look forward to Covent Garden coming to Wadebridge. Good luck.
ReplyDeleteAs for lovewadebridge contributing to the Town Plan, please just bear in mind that when you state "Tat will give another avenue for our friends to have input into discussions about what sort of future townspeople seek", may be the sort of future friends of your group seek, but that is definitely NOT the general opinion of what the "townsfolk" seek.
It is also worth noting that in the 2004 Town Plan, there were requests for an alternative supermarket, and that 70% of those surveyed thought that "quality retail outlets" were needed. This would suggest that the feeling even six years ago was that the town needed more and better retail options.
Great that 6 years on, we have the chance of seeing these
Hope the busking lives up to expectations. It'll be linked to Cancer Research UK's busking programme, so a good cause and access to good people. As for another supermarket and more retail outlets in town, that would be fine, as was said at the last public meeting. But what we face is a very large out-of-town expansion. We can't know if those who are concerned about the impact of this upon the town centre are in the majority or minority. If they are a minority it is a very large minority. But supermarkets have only a brief mention in the last Town Plan, which is about the bigger picture. Most people probably want a secure prosperous future with good quality of life. The question is how to get there. It will be interesting to see where similarities and differences lie in reaching a consensus.
ReplyDeleteOf course you are in the minority, that is plain to see .......an estimate of 150 people attended your meeting surely that is a minority of the population of Wadebridge. Even if you were to triple this number to account for those that wanted to attend, were ill, late home from work or on their holidays, it's still a minority!
ReplyDeleteThe problem again is that people are reluctant to engage in discussion with your group as it presents as anti supermarket. This is why you have difficulty gauging public opinion on these issues. To the rest of us it is clearly obvious where public opinion lies as we are not introspective!
On the issue of "Mini Covent Garden" I'm looking forward to this improving my quality of life!
Token ideas that while fine are just efforts deflect for you introspective anti supermarket views.
Re the green energy stuff this too is a good idea but before you get too excited check where the funding is coming from as in the current climate it might be a non starter.
Information on this would be more welcome to me than more boring anti supermarket posts.